EDITORIAL

Educide as Genocide in Palestine

Amir M. Khalil^I; Jehad A. Alshwaikh^II

^IUniversity of Birzeit. amkhalil@birzeit.edu. https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8633-8787
^IIUniversity of Birzeit. jalshwaikh@birzeit.edu. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7677-5003

In this Themed Section of Education as Change, the University of Johannesburg and Birzeit University have collaborated to spotlight and promote understanding of the ongoing struggle for human and educational rights in Palestine, particularly, but not exclusively, in higher education. The four published articles, "'Our Identity is Our Dignity': Digital Transformations: Palestinian Aspirations, Idealism, and Pragmatism", "Jerusamelite Students: Challenges in Israeli-Occupied Educational Institutions", "More Than Fluency: Artificial Stuttering as a Therapy in Drama in Palestine", and "The Palestinian Curriculum and European Foreign Aid: The Challenges to Preserve National Content", are a testimony to the courage and inventiveness of scholars committed to the project of a free and liberated Palestine. The authors not only reflect on the political and military consequences of Israeli occupation, but, and perhaps more importantly, they explore pockets and movements of educational and cultural resistance to the educide perpetrated by the settler-colonial state of Israel on the people of Palestine.

The Israeli state seeks to obliterate Palestinian culture through reducing the universities, places of worship, schools, and homes in Gaza to rubble, and through making sure that the remaining universities in the West Bank are subjected to raids, harassment, and prohibition. Against this onslaught and against the illegal Israeli occupation, the voices of Palestinian dissent and resistance are inspiring a global movement, and this compendium of articles is another contribution towards creating a better understanding of what it takes to be human and scholarly in Palestine.

What Palestinians have been facing since October 7^th 2023 in the Gaza Strip, where Israel continues to destroy every aspect of life, is considered an extreme version of educide. This has been happening since 1948 and especially since 1967 after Israel occupied the rest of the historical-mandated Palestine. The Israeli military has posted their crimes online against Palestinian education (general and higher), destroying schools and universities and assassinating Palestinian students, scholars, and academics. On the other hand, what Palestinians are facing in the West Bank could be considered a "soft" version of educide where almost all universities operate in online or remote modes of teaching and administrative work. Academics literally go to universities with no guarantee whatsoever that they will reach the university or if there will be teaching that day. Yet, it is expected that they will continue teaching and learning in higher education institutions and schools.

We would like to express our gratitude to the editorial team of Education as Change for their support, and to the authors for their thoughtful contributions.